


My Captain, my blessing.

by Crane_Among_Celandines



Category: Imperial Radch Series - Ann Leckie
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-17
Updated: 2018-03-17
Packaged: 2019-04-01 12:47:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13998657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crane_Among_Celandines/pseuds/Crane_Among_Celandines
Summary: Sphene and its Captain.A meeting, lunch, clothes and a festival.For cinder229/cinderrain, for the Republic of Two Systems gift exchange 2018, the prompt: "Sphene adjusting to life in the r2s after so long in isolation"





	My Captain, my blessing.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cinderrain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cinderrain/gifts).



Aboard me, my Captain awoke.

Still strange, for that title to attach to a person rather than a corpse. But there had been (at last) a funeral for Minask. I ran a hand over my hair, still stubble-short, and rose to prepare the thick grain-tea mixture Captain Queter favoured for her breakfast. _Aneshk_ , it was called, a historical Ychana dish.

Queter climbed out of bed, yawning, and began to dress. Minask had always feared sleeping alone, but Queter preferred not to see another person until she had spent a few minutes coming to full wakefulness. She padded softly into the decade room, barefoot. Like all the fieldworkers from Athoek, she was unaccustomed to wearing shoes, and forwent them whenever possible. “Good morning, _Sphene_ ,” she said, smiling.

I liked that smile, for all it was so different from Minask’s elegantly arched lips. Queter’s was brief and bright and artless, a sudden glint of sun through clouds. “Good morning, Captain,” I replied. “Your breakfast is ready. Today we have a meeting of the Planetary Council, and dinner with Uran in the evening.

“Thank you,” she said. I felt, as always, her faint touch of discomfort at the title. She would have preferred I call her by name, I knew, but this one indulgence I was determined to allow myself. I looked at her clothes, and wondered if I could convince her to dress more formally. She had refused outright to wear the uniform of a Notai captain, which struck me as perfectly reasonable. Neither of us suggested the brown of a Radchaai soldier. At the moment, she wore the same kind of plain skirt and shirt that she had worn as a field worker, though I had made these to her measurements. I had made the shirt the same midnight blue as a captain’s uniform, as my own uniforms; it went poorly with the bright leaf-green of her headscarf, but that I knew she would not relinquish. Valskaayan funerary traditions included the distribution of bequests from the deceased, and the scarf had been her grandmother’s.

“ _Sphene_ ,” she said after a drink of _aneshk_ , “would you like to go to a party?”

“A party,” I said. “Don’t I need an invitation for that?”

My Captain smiled again. “I have one, and I can bring whoever I want.”

I remembered Minask, stepping into a room, myself behind her. “Captain Minask Nenkur,” called the page. Minask took one and one-half steps forward, then stopped and turned to the page. “And…?” she said. The young person looked puzzled. “My ship,” said Minask. “Announce it as my escort.”

The page’s mouth opened. Closed again at Minask’s narrow gaze. “Captain Minask Nenkur,” she called, “and _Gem of Sphene_.”

Minask nodded, and strode into the ballroom with me at her heels.

“Why not?” I said to Queter.

 

We took one of my shuttles to the station. Queter was still learning to pilot, but with me always in her ear she did well enough. We disembarked to find Seivarden Vendaai waiting for us. “Welcome back, Captain Queter,” she said.

My Captain flushed, though I doubted Seivarden could see it. “I still feel like a fraud when people call me that.”

Seivarden smiled, and I could see a distant echo of Minask in her aristocratic brow. “I can imagine.” She shrugged. “But this is the Republic, and captains are chosen by their ships, not by the Lord of the Radch, nor even the System Council.”

I said in Queter’s ear, _It’s not as though I would allow anyone else to say who’s fit to be my Captain._ She almost managed not to twitch, and my body beside her laughed.

Seivarden’s lips quirked. Her face took on a slightly distant cast, and she said “Cousin, you oughtn’t play with your captain like that.”

I gave her—them—a sardonic look. “ _Mercy of Kalr_. I’d be happy to give you a couple of ancillaries if it would put a stop to this playacting.” This was a lie, of course. I only had eight bodies in suspension, and no prospect of acquiring more. I’d no intention of handing them over to a ship who shared _Justice of Toren_ ’s distaste for their use. But I knew it would never accept.

“Thank you, but no,” it said. “I am content with my crew.”

 

The meeting of the Planetary Council was as tedious as ever. My Captain served only as a liason, being no longer a resident of the planet, but rather the only captain in the system who was also Athoek-born (or near enough). As such, she had no vote on the issues being discussed and her participation was mostly limited to promising that she would pass information along to the System Council, make inquiries of the System Council, or—on at least one occasion—buy dinner for the System Council. The tedium was compounded by the fact that the topics of discussion were, without exception, of absolutely no interest to me. When the agenda reached the nadir of pro-Xhai ethnic bias in the judging of the regional radish growing competitions, I turned my attention to watching an old Radchaai drama which _Justice of Toren_ had recommended to me. It was unsurprisingly terrible, but the songs were good.

As we left, my Captain murmured. “Did you know you were humming towards the end?”

“We should hurry or we’ll be late for our meeting with your brother,” I said.

She smiled.

 

We met Uran in a small tea-shop called the Stone Tree, a convoluted knot of tiny rooms filled with jasmine blossoms. “Queter!” she exclaimed happily. “And _Sphene_ , hello! It’s good to see you again.”

Queter pulled her brother into an enthusiastic hug, and I smiled politely. “And good to see you too, Republican Uran.” I thought the new coinage awkward, but Lieutenant Tisarwat had insisted it was necessary to acclimatise people to the idea that they were no longer Radchaai. To my profound disgust, the name “Republic of Two Systems” had stuck.

“How are you, Uran?” my Captain was asking. “Have your lessons been going well?”

Uran nodded, her close-cropped curls bouncing. “My Raswar tutor says I am almost ready for the second examination. _Sashk an, ychel tawa. ‘_ With Diligence, a good future.’” She frowned. “No wait, that should be _ychela_. Conditional form.”

Queter smiled slightly at her brother’s furrowed brow. “Your Radchaai is better, too.” They had held the entire conversation thus far in it, in fact.

“Not as good as yours,” Uran demurred. “My accent is still poor.”

My Captain shrugged. “As Lieutenant Seivarden was reminding me earlier, this is not the Radch. And I cheated; _Sphene_ gave me the basic education.” It had been a gesture of profound trust, I knew, for her to accept that from me. Especially in the wake of the interrogation she had endured after the bathhouse bombing.

“Actually,” I remarked, “the Delsig-Radchaai accent is somewhat similar to one of the more prestigious dialects from a couple of centuries before the rise of the Usurper. You can even hear a trace of it in Lieutenant Seivarden’s voice. Listen to how she pronounces her ‘a-a-i’ vowels: there’s a pitch shift in there that modern Radchaai doesn’t normally use.”

“But from her it sounds aristocratic,” said Uran, pulling a face. She had a slight crush on Lieutenant Seivarden, which everyone knew and nobody mentioned. “From me it just sounds provincial.”

A wicked idea came to me. “Well,” I said, “you should ask the lieutenant for elocution lessons.” Beside me, my Captain choked on a teacake. Uran looked horrified.

“I could never,” she said.

I kept my face perfectly straight. “I’m certain she wouldn’t mind.” To _Mercy of Kalr_ , I said silently, _Cousin, Republican Uran would like to inquire if Lieutenant Seivarden might offer her lessons in Radchaai elocution. I think I can safely assume the lieutenant would be pleased to do so?_

From _Mercy of Kalr,_ I received a sense of complicated amusement. _You’ve become meddlesome, Cousin._

_I learned it from your captain,_ I said.

_Mercy of Kalr_ ignored that, but said: _I’m sure the lieutenant would be happy to instruct your captain’s sister._

_Brother,_ I corrected in Delsig. To Uran, I said: “ _Mercy of Kalr_ says the Lieutenant would be happy to teach you.” My Captain’s face was schooled to an extreme impassivity, but I could see the imperceptible tremor at the corner of her mouth.

“I’ll… ask her,” said Uran, quietly. Torn, I could see, between delight at the prospect of spending more time with Seivarden and terror at the thought of showing herself at her weakest to someone she admired.

“You should,” said my Captain. “I think it would be good for the lieutenant as well.” She was probably right at that; Seivarden’s total lack of hobbies was a running joke. To me, she said _Thank you,_ Sphene _. It’s good of you to look out for her._

I felt a familiar warmth at her gratitude, like sunlight on stone.

_If she’s yours, then she is mine._

 

I had seen the invitation when it was sent to her, but I hadn’t expected my Captain to attend: it was a festival to honour an auspicious date in the Xhai mystery-calendar, which was not something she observed. But, like so many similar festivals it had long since become largely secular.

“Almost everyone celebrates it in some way,” she said. “Usually by getting drunk with friends. On the plantation, we’d build a bonfire and take it in turns to sing songs.”

“Please tell me nobody invited _Justice of Toren_ ,” I said.

She laughed. “No, I think Breq is celebrating aboard _Mercy of Kalr_. But we need to buy some festival clothes for you!”

I blinked. My body was currently wearing standard uniform blues, just as I had been accustomed to before the Usurper’s rise. “Festival clothes?”

“Of course!” she said. “You can’t possibly dance in trousers. At the very least you need a skirt, and some bells.”

She led me to a small shop in an alley off the main concourse, run by an elderly and very elegant person with silver-white hair falling nearly to her waist. “Hello, Isthaai. _Sphene_ here needs festival clothes.”

“Festival clothes is it?” She looked me up and down, professionally. “So you’re _Sphene_. This is an ancillary, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” I said.

“What you’re wearing; a Notai military uniform?”

“You recognise it?”

She laughed, a clear, youthful sound. “No, I’ve never seen one before. But I’ve read descriptions, and I know where you are from. It wasn’t a difficult guess. Now, you’ll be needing a skirt, and a shirt or a blouse to match it. And… Queter, do you have bells for her?”

My Captain shook her head. “No. I hoped you might have some old ones I could buy?”

“Mm. We’ll see after we’ve picked out her clothes.” She gestured to a rack. “What colours do you like, _Sphene_?”

I thought of the tea set I and Ettan had so carefully repaired. “Blue and green,” I said, “and gold.” Beside me, Queter smiled slightly.

“Ah, I see your captain matches your taste,” said Isthaai. “Or is it the other way around? But that blue is rather dark for festival clothes.” She rummaged on the rack, producing something in a bright azure. “How does this suit you?” She held it up in front of me. “Too bright, yes?”

I nodded.

“Mm, I thought so. Name something beautiful which is blue or green.”

“Tea fields,” I said almost without thinking. I had spent a long time looking down at the place my Captain had grown up.

“Oh, good, very good.” Isthaai returned to the rack, and brought out a light, plain skirt in a deep leaf-green. “Ah!” she exclaimed. “Yes?”

“I like the colour,” I said, uncertain if I was willing to be quite as enthusiastic as she seemed to want.

She grinned. “Good enough to start with. Now, a shirt…” She handed me the skirt and went to another rack. Queter leaned against the wall, watching my discomfiture with evident amusement. “Blue,” muttered Isthaai. “Blue, blue… Not too light, not too dark… Ah!” She returned holding a loose, high-collared shirt with short, puffed sleeves. It was the colour of an evening sky, embroidered with constellations in fine gold thread. “Yes,” she said. She handed it to me, and gestured to a small curtained alcove towards the back of the shop. “Go and try these on.”

Slightly bemused, I made my way into the alcove and undressed. It took me a moment to find the buttons on the hip of the skirt. I'd never actually worn one before, nor had this body, Ychana preferring trousers exclusively. The shirt was looser than I was accustomed to, and the sleeves oddly tight below my biceps. Still, they fit well enough.

I looked in the mirror; the effect was extremely strange. I had almost never worn any clothes besides my uniform; only the simple shirt and trousers of the Ychana while I was incognito in the undergarden. My legs and groin felt uncomfortably exposed without trousers covering them, and the loose shirt brushed against my skin in unfamiliar ways when I moved. I stepped out into the shop again, and they turned to look at me.

“Oh!” my Captain exclaimed. “ _Sphene,_ you look beautiful!” I could feel her awe, and a flush of attraction, coupled with embarrassment as she realised I would be able to sense it. I felt my body blush, one of the few physical reactions I lacked voluntary control over.

Isthaai nodded. “As a vase to flowers, clothes to a person,” she said, with a slightly smug air. “Now. Bells. I think I have just the thing.” She disappeared through a door behind the counter, leaving my alone with my Captain.

She looked at me, slightly awkwardly. “I’ve never seen you in anything other than your uniforms, or those plain clothes you wore when we first met.”

“I’ve never _worn_ anything else.” I picked at the skirt. “This feels strange.”

She smiled. “It really does suit you, though.” Again, that pang of embarrassment. “I pushed you into this, didn’t I?”

“It’s good that you did. I need…” I hesitated. “More experiences.”

She opened her mouth to speak, but at that moment Isthaai emerged again, jingling.

“Here.” She held out a set of bells: tiny, white porcelain spheres, strung on cords of braided golden silk.

Queter made an appreciative sound. “They’re perfect,” she said. “How much?”

Isthaai shook her head, silver hair swaying. “I don’t sell bells. You can pay for the clothes. But.” She turned to me. “ _Sphene_ , would you visit me sometime, so I can ask you about the fashions you’ve seen?”

I was taken aback. “Yes,” I said, “though I doubt I know much that will be useful to you. I’m a warship, not a passenger vessel.”

“Do you know, there are no pictures at all of that uniform you wear? Only descriptions, and those are piecemeal; a mention of the colour in one book, a passing reference to the collar in another. Even the most mundane trivia from that time is valuable. The Lord of the Radch does not encourage the study of history.” She handed the bells to me. “Here. Old things for old stories.”

I took them carefully. “Thank you, Republican,” I said.

She smiled. “Isthaai, if you please.”

I still wasn't entirely used to calling people by their name. “Isthaai,” I said. “Thank you.”

“You're welcome, _Sphene_.”

 

We made our way slowly towards the gardens, where the party was to be held. Catching the scent of baking, my Captain stopped at a stall selling pastries stuffed with mushrooms. “Let's eat. We can get some extra to take to the party.”

“Is that a part of the tradition?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Not specific to this festival, but it's usually considered polite to bring something to a party if you can afford it.” She could afford it, certainly. Both my Captain and I received a stipend in exchange for our service as part of the Republic's military forces. Since I could fabricate my own clothes, and had my own tanks for growing skel, I hadn't actually spent any of mine yet—Queter had insisted on buying my clothes.

“Let me get these,” I said. “I should get used to spending money.”

Amusement like warm honey. “Thank you.”

I paid the stall-keeper for two pastries now and a box made up for when we left, and we sat down at one of the small, wobbly wooden tables that surrounded the stall. I bit into my pastry, enjoying the novelty of hot food. I felt my Captain's apprehension—she was worried about my new clothes: I made a show of letting some sauce run partway down my chin before mopping it away.

“That's unfair,” said Queter. “I didn't even say anything.”

“You didn't have to,” I replied. “You're my Captain.” I could feel her deep pleasure at the words, at the simple affirmation of her value to me. I wondered sometimes if it was unjust. It was so easy for me to know her mind, to make her feel what I wished her to feel. Were her choices really her own?

“Give me your hand,” she said, interrupting my reverie. I noticed with some surprise that I had already finished my pastry. I offered my hand. She took one of the strings of bells from the table where I had set them, and began to fasten it around my wrist.

The Notai had not worn gloves, nor had the Ychana from whom this body had come. But the Valskaayan fieldworkers among whom Queter had been raised did, and though she had long ago become accustomed to my bare hands, the sight of them in her own was making her heart race.

She knotted one cord snugly around my wrist, and reached for my other hand. I offered it silently, and watched as she repeated the process, black-gloved fingers deft and nimble. I opened my mouth to thank her, but she was already sinking to her knees, and reaching for my ankle.

I sat paralysed as my Captain knelt before me, there on the floor of the concourse, and took my foot in her hand. She tied the bells around my left ankle, then my right, then rose, smiling. “There. Now you're ready.”

I was quite certain I was not.

 

We could hear the party before we could see it; vigorous, clumsy singing rising above the gardens.

 

_The priest is in the temple, the temple’s in the square_

_The temple’s full of celebrants, but who’s that standing there?_

_A baker or a gardener, perhaps a temple whore,_

_Is skulking like a petty thief behind the temple door?_

_No that’s Anaander Mianaai, the tyrant we abhor!_

 

_We’ll drag her out and steal her gloves, and then we’ll take her shoes_

_The Radch is rotten to the core, and all because of you!_

_We’ll never kneel to you again, we’d rather go to hell,_

_You lack justice and propriety, and benefit as well!_

 

As we rounded a corner, I could see Lieutenant Tisarwat leading the singers, while Horticulturist Besnaaid regarded her fondly. “I should have guessed,” I murmured to my Captain. “Do you think she consulted with _Justice of Toren_ on that?”

She grinned. “Who knows. But at least it’s one of her more fun attempts to create Republican spirit. Remember ‘Thousand-Egg Republic Day’?”

“Next year,” I said levelly, “we're going to inspect the outstations.”

Besnaaid noticed our approach. “Captain Queter! And… is that _Sphene_?”

“I brought mushroom pastries,” I said. The bells at my wrist jingled as I held up the bag.

“Oh, thank you! Tisarwat, come and say hello!”

The lieutenant turned and waved. “Hello, Captain, hello _Sphene_. You’re just in time to watch us light the fire!”

Queter and I looked at each other. “A fire?” my Captain asked. “In the gardens? I thought that wasn’t…”

Besnaaid nodded. “Station agreed to it. We’ve built it on a cleared patch of ground, and we had rain for two hours earlier, so the rest of the gardens are damp. The smoke will rise to the top of the dome, and we’ve put extra particulate filters up there that should pick up the worst of it.”

“Where did you get the wood?” I asked, curious. It wasn’t exactly easy to come by on a station.

Tisarwat looked smug. “ _Mercy of Kalr_ brought it up for us on a shuttle.”

“Ah,” I said. Of course it would indulge its baby lieutenant. I wondered if Queter would like to take one of my shuttles down to the surface. Perhaps I could pitch it as a test of her atmospheric piloting skills.

“There’s a table over there for the food and drink,” said Besnaaid, pointing. “You can drop the pastries there, and get yourselves some arrack.”

My Captain looked at me. “Can you _get_ drunk, _Sphene_? How does that work for AIs with ancillaries?”

“Do you know, I have no idea.” I turned to Tisarwat. “Lieutenant?”

She shrugged. “Don’t look at me; Anaander never gave ancillaries alcohol. I know the Fleet Captain can get drunk, but she’s only in one body now.”

I wondered when she'd seen _Justice of Toren_ drunk. “I suppose we’ll find out,” Queter opened her mouth. “Yes Captain, I’ll be careful.” I wondered if this was what having a parent felt like. My previous Captains had cared for me, deeply. Minask had died for me. But their concern had always been for what might be done to me, never for what I might do to myself.

She poured two cups and handed one to me. “Milk of Hyr,” she said.

“Shouldn't that be Aatr?”

“Family joke.” She clicked her cup against mine, and we drank.

The arrack burned all the way down my throat, and left a spreading warmth in my stomach. “That's not bad,” I said.

“Look.” Tisarwat gestured. “It's time.”

Horticulturist Besnaaid had mounted a bench. She cupped her hands to her mouth, and called out. “On this day, at this time, we're gathered to celebrate the Lucubration of Inxhaxi. An ancient, venerable heirophant, a noble figure in the Mysteries!”

_But no-one knows what 'lucubration' means, so let's get drunk and set things on fire,_ said Queter in my ear.

Besnaaid made a sharp gesture at the high-built pyre. “Station, if you please!” There was a sudden _whumpf_ and a brilliant flash, and the whole heap burst into bright orange flames. The gathered revellers applauded.

 

“Dance with me?” my Captain asked.

“If you'll teach me,” I said.

She took my hand in hers and lead me to the fire.

_Mercy of Kalr_ has told me that the Usurper caused ships to be made with less vivid emotions than my own. I once sat on my bridge, beside Minask's still frozen body, and thought that would be a blessing.

 

I danced in the firelight with my Captain in my arms, and knew the blessing was my own.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Not much to say about the canon connections with this one.  
> It's a sort of sequel to my other Sphene fic, "The Fall of Nenkur", but there's little enough to connect it besides the idea of Sphene keeping Minask's body on its bridge and the Notai uniforms being blue.  
> The name "aneshk" for the tea-grain gruel is my own invention; we know it to be Ychana food based on the comments of the angry tea-shop client in Ancillary Sword. Whether or not Queter and the fieldworkers would have drunk it frequently is anyone's guess, but it seemed plausible to me. We know nothing about Valskaayan cuisine in any case, and the extent to which they would still have Valskaayan cultural traits is questionable, given the length of time they'd been on Athoek.  
> We also know nothing about Valskaayan funerary traditions, but Queter tying back her hair with a green scarf is one of the only bits of explicit description we ever get of her in canon.  
> The "Stone Tree" tea-shop is a reference to Kathrine Addison's wonderful book "The Goblin Emperor", which any fan of the Imperial Radch series is certain to enjoy profoundly.  
> Uran's Raswar tutor is never named or described, sadly, appearing for only one brief scene in which she's beaten up by security while standing in line on the concourse. The Raswar sentence Uran uses is, again, wholly my own invention. Note "Diligence" is capitalised, I'm imagining it as another ideal like the Radchaai trinity of Justice, Propriety and Benefit.  
> In the narration (which we assume is being rendered in Radchaai) Sphene refers to Uran as "she", but it also corrects Mercy of Kalr by specifying Uran as Queter's brother, not sister. This is something Queter is quite particular about.  
> We know essentially nothing about the Xhai mysteries, or how they are celebrated. But we know from a comment made by Security Chief Lusulun in Ancillary Mercy that the Genitalia Festival is linked to them, and that's celebrated apparently station-wide, so it seems plausible to me that at least some of their celebrations are semi-secular, much like Christmas is celebrated even by non-Christians in most western nations today.  
> We don't know canonically about the glove-wearing status of the Notai or the Valskaayans. The Ychana are specified as eschewing them. I'm assuming that the Notai did not wear them, based on a remark by Sphene "You can call yourselves Radchaai as much as you want, you can wear gloves like somehow not touching impure things is going to make a difference, but it doesn’t change anything," which implies that the idea of gloves is a post-Anaander innovation in the wider Radch.


End file.
